


Divergence

by intheheart



Series: Nirwen Lavellan [10]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, post-Corypheus' defeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5207102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intheheart/pseuds/intheheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set after the events of the DAI main game. Corypheus is dead, Solas has left, and my Inquisitor, Nirwen Lavellan, has decided to visit her clan in Wycome. </p><p>This is a chapter that belongs somewhere in this planned timeline, but it came out first. Nirwen stays at the home of her lifelong friend and onetime first love, Nehn. After their relationship ended, Nirwen and Nehn stayed the closest of friends. Nirwen has a nightmare, leading to some important realizations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divergence

Nirwen. Her Nirwen, the comfort, the big sister, the skilled hands and open heart, the leader, the woman who stepped up and saved Thedas, still looked to her now. A flash of her thirteen year-old wide eyes again, unsure why she had been given the blade. Her eyes looked puzzled, seized up, alone but not alone. A panic. A few hurried breaths, then a realization, the rawness of those seconds spent lost, suspended, they fade. Something turns solid, knits itself back, whole. The trembling of her nightmare, the muttering, the cold sweat, the shriek Nehn wouldn't forget says otherwise.  
  
Nirwen at thirteen bit her lip, steadied her eyes, learned to breathe silently, calmly, to be still as she counted heartbeats, passing time, removing urgency in exchange for timing and technique. She turned to Nehn back then, her face soft, but with determination, a quiet low fire, something that she grew to love in her.  Fear had hold of her, but deftness of skill and instinct, a desire to learn, and greater strength, had bound it, tamed it. Nirwen did have a talent for this work; they had chosen well. Later, the girl who always wore her feelings became a woman so good that she was chosen to spy. There was always more for Nirwen, more than she believed, more than she thought she deserved, or wanted. That truth, a slow realization, tugged at, unfurled over time, had been part of what ultimately separated them. Broken hearts were mutual, but Nehn knew she would heal.  
  
Those scars seemed so distant now. Nirwen, before her, marked no longer by her vallaslin, but marked with deeper, invisible wounds she could merely comfort. There was no solving this together. There was no touch or word that could take them away. Nehn, the focused, the precise, the girl with open arms, the problem solver, the organized woman with her eyes on the target and mind always three steps ahead. The futility was a strange burden that ran through her like a physical ache.  
  
When the clan received word of Nirwen's survival, then captivity, with little news of her condition, Nehn's stomach knotted, ill with the possibilities. Halina, who delivered the letter direct from their Keeper, embraced her seated love from behind, arms around her shoulders as they offered silent prayers.  
  
Nirwen took her offered hand in the filtered light of dawn. "Ir abelas, Nehn. I woke you," she said, a faint, embarrassed smile passing over her lips. She closed her eyes again, the fingers of her free hand pushing at her brow. "And that you had to see this," she added quietly.  
  
Nehn softly kissed Nirwen's hand, safely cradled in her own. "No. Nirwen, nothing to apologize for. I didn't know. But I'm here, always. We're here for you. Halina no less." She gently squeezed the hand still in hers as Nirwen sighed.  
  
"I know. They come less frequently now. Mostly. Usually, Solas would stop the worst of them," she said, the longing in her voice, whether regret or mere sadness, distinct. "I've had sleepless nights too. Or waking at this hour, but I'm usually alone. I've made fast friends with the dissipating blue cloak that turns into dawn," she said, smiling at Nehn again, more herself now. The resignation, no, the adaptation, and that resolve were definitely Nirwen, and the realization stung Nehn deeply.  
  
Hello fear, or should you be Fear now? You've come, returned for your tribute, and taken up inside the mind of one still so determined that she pushes forward even in your presence. She yet breathes, counting heartbeats, a lingering fatigue she betrays with a smile, still.  
  
They always lived with the sense of danger, scarce word from a loved one, the unknown entity that might be encounters with outsiders, the work of guarding their people having its own toll. Death had taken children, adults young and old, and years of scarcity had also depleted their stores at times. Yet that day changed them all. Nirwen went off to spy, yes, but at a peace conference.  It didn't seem like the event that would change the look in her eyes forever. When she returned this time, Nehn meeting eyes still bright, still determined, but weighted, tired, and searching.    
  
Nirwen. Her Nirwen. In spite of a connection that would last for life itself, their divergent paths were never as clear.

**Author's Note:**

> Halina is Nehn's wife and the current First of clan Lavellan. I use 'wife' for clarity here, but she and Nehn are settled down.


End file.
